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Let’s get one thing clear, it is those on the far right who invariably turn to violence on the back of their intolerance. In Perth, we see an individual throwing a homemade bomb into the midst of the peaceful Invasion Day march. Thankfully, this device did not go off or we would be having a very different discussion right now. On the Gold Coast a young March for Australia organiser gets into a fight and deliberately lies about the ethnic identity of his opponents. He promotes this disinformation to his online audience, fraudulently claiming that his fisticuff fight was with Middle Eastern Australians. QLD police declare this information to be false and misleading. You cannot trust what comes out of the mouth of racists.
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The American pollical system is pretty weird. For instance, where is their Leader of the Opposition? They have 2 major political parties opposing each other at elections, but when one party is in office the other is nowhere to be seen. Right now, President Trump is doing his grandiose thing, but the recently defeated Kamala Harris is a big fat zero on the scene. How can the party not in power be the alternative government in waiting without a leader to rally around? Congress is a massive failure and has been for many years, as many of them don’t represent the people they are supposed to because they have been bought by AIPAC or some other super pac. Republican congress men and women are so much in thrall to President Trump that they have collectively lost their voice.
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Some of us never quite grow up, it seems. Guns are not big boy toys. Why do individuals who live in the suburbs need fire arms? Recreational pursuits, they say. Well, these are not toys to be played with, they are, in fact, deadly weapons which make killing human beings easy. A fire arm gets stolen every 4 hours in Australia, according to the latest research. We are putting ourselves at risk if we place the recreational desires of a few above the safety of us all. We are not talking about farmers and people who live in the bush here, as the vast majority of guns are owned by Australians living in cities.
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AI is coming for your job. As someone who has just been replaced by an automated program this is real, let me tell you. In light of this it is pertinent to remember that Australia punishes the unemployed economically. It is bipartisan policy of Australian governments to provide below the poverty line welfare payments to the unemployed. This has been going on for decades and is one of the reasons why we have a substantial number of older Australians living in poverty. These folk cannot afford to visit the dentist to get treatment because it is too expensive and dental is not included in Medicare. This in one of the wealthiest nations on earth.
The Trump regime is attacking boats from Venezuela, blowing them up in international waters. Why this focus on a South American nation? Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves. The US has a great tradition of going after countries with lots of oil and administrations that don’t bend over backwards for them. Donald Trump is a firm believer in fossil fuels. His administration has already reversed much of the good work that was done under Joe Biden, when it came to renewables and the transition away from climate damaging fossil fuels. Trump is the ultimate head in the sand guy, when it comes to global warming.
We do not have a progressive national news platform in Australia. We have a rabid right wing News Corp, which controls most of the nation’s newspapers, has a national radio network and produces Sky News Australia and Fox News. Nine Fairfax and Seven West Media can be comfortably described as corporate legacy media on the right of centre, politically speaking. The ABC, our only truly national broadcaster, follows the News Corp lead in what it sets as the daily news agenda. This was not always the case, as a couple of decades ago the ABC contained the most intelligent and passionate journalists working around the nation. How the ABC lost its progressive soul? Is a question well worth asking.
Trump is like the parent of a raped daughter who blames her rather than the perpetrator for the rape. Trump blames Ukraine for being invaded by Russia. Donald Trump is a disgusting human being. The Americans who voted for Trump should hang their heads in shame. We can only hope that someone with the courage can end this shameful chapter sooner rather than later. What the world needs now is not ugly Americans in charge of a corrupt and morally bankrupt administration. Stupid is as stupid does. Trump 2.0 is making America smaller not greater.
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The Sydney Swans flop off the bye at the Gabba under fierce Lion’s pressure. Personally, I hate the bye and always have as a Swan’s fan. Too many times the team fails to fire after a week off. The Swans looked soft on this Thursday night featured contest with last year’s premiers. Brody Grundy gifted Brisbane goal scoring opportunities out of the centre 4 times on the night. These free kicks for crossing the line at the ball up are huge penalties to pay for this indiscretion, especially when advantage is taken and opposing players steal out the front of the centre square toward their goal.
Footy Fresh The Sydney Swans flop off the bye at the Gabba under fierce Lion’s pressure. Personally, I hate the bye and always have as a Swan’s fan. Too many times the team fails to fire after a week off. The Swans looked soft on this Thursday night featured contest with last year’s premiers. Brody Grundy gifted Brisbane goal scoring opportunities out of the centre 4 times on the night. These free kicks for crossing the line at the ball up are huge penalties to pay for this indiscretion, especially when advantage is taken and opposing players steal out the front of the centre square toward their goal.
Footy Fresh
The Sydney Swans flop off the bye at the Gabba under fierce Lion’s pressure. Personally, I hate the bye and always have as a Swan’s fan. Too many times the team fails to fire after a week off. The Swans looked soft on this Thursday night featured contest with last year’s premiers. Brody Grundy gifted Brisbane goal scoring opportunities out of the centre 4 times on the night. These free kicks for crossing the line at the ball up are huge penalties to pay for this indiscretion, especially when advantage is taken and opposing players steal out the front of the centre square toward their goal.
Footy Fresh
You know a lot of the apparent support for One Nation comes from older white Australians. Pauline Hanson and her campaign machine promote the idea that things were better back in the day. This right wing idealisation of the past, of there being some sort of golden age, is nothing new. Fascists in Hitler’s era promoted the concept of the pure German who lived during a bucolic time of yesteryear. Romanticising the past appeals to older folk especially. Contrasting it with the present and focusing on negative stuff like urban crime and demonising special interest groups plays well with this audience. Hitler and the Nazis attacked the immorality of the Weimar Republic, which won them electoral support from conservate Germans. Pauline Hanson attacks Muslims, refugees and immigrants, as all things bad for Australia. The idealisation of the past is a never land, in that it never really existed the way they say it did.
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Whilst watching a documentary about Nazism and fascism in America back in the 1930s, my ears were pricked by the repeated expressions ‘ make America great’ and ‘one nation’! The modern day use of these terms as names and tag lines are by no means accidental. The white supremacist beliefs and racism, which lie at the base of MAGA and One Nation, in the US and Australia respectively, are the foundation of these movements and political parties. If you have read DH Lawrence’s book Kangaroo or seen the movie based upon it, you will know that Australia was not immune from the rise of fascism post WW1.
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The Liberal Party is badly named in light of what it has turned into of late. There being few liberal minded people left in the party. Newly elected president, former PM Tony Abbott, is Pauline Hanson’s leading cheer leader. Abbot was also the bloke that sold the Port of Darwin to the Chinese. Abbot and his Sky News Australia former chief of staff, Peta Credlin, have taken the Liberal Party from centre Right to far Right downunder, via their influence, in recent times. The un-electability of the Liberal Party, on the basis of this move to the fringe, has cleared the way for One Nation to fill a vacuum. Right wing Aussies require a political vehicle for their zero sum game way of looking at the world. A world of winners and losers, rather than the progressive conception of us all being in this together.
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Australia has a tax problem and I am going to suggest something to remedy that. The ATO is in a hole for some $52 billion, mostly from Australians who owe back taxes. In the most recent financial year that we have records for, some 91 Aussies who earned more than a million dollars paid no tax on that income at all. They managed to do this via creative tax accounting paying professionals hundreds of thousands to make it happen. These folk would rather do this than pay their fair share of tax on their earnings. There is an American flavour to this – the idea that the rich shouldn’t have to pay a lot of tax is promulgated by the wealthy and the GOP in the US. America has a national debt of $37 trillion and this correlates with the reduction of taxes on the wealthy over the last few decades. The top income tax rate was in the 90% range in the 1960s and that has come down to 37% as of now – that is a huge drop. Company taxes have come down substantially, as well, in recent times. Wealthy individuals and corporations are not paying their fair share of tax.
The murder of an Al Jazeera film crew and prominent journalist in Gaza by the IDF in a targeted attack is the final straw. Australia must sanction Israel and cut off all ties with Zionists here and abroad. Enough is enough! The outrageous destruction of an entire city and the genocide of the Palestinians is well beyond the pale. Over 17, 000 children have been killed out of the more than 60, 000 Gazans bombed and shot to death by the IDF. Acts of terrorism are no justification for murder and destruction on such wanton levels. It is time that Australia gets real about what is occurring in Gaza and in the West Bank.
Donald Trump justifying his tariff policy trots out the line that other nations are taking advantage of the United States. That trade imbalances are an unfair attack on America and its people. This Trump claiming victimhood status BS has reached new levels of absurdity. Who buys that the most powerful economic and military might in the world is being taken advantage of? Come on folks, you might not be the sharpest tools in the shed, but really? This poppycock is a smokescreen for the fact that you will be paying another tax on everything you buy, which is imported or uses imported components. Hang on, wasn’t Trump going to make things more affordable? Didn’t he promise that for your vote?
In America, you get the sense that if someone made a fortune from murdering babies and draining their blood and selling it on the internet they would still be celebrated. The billionaire factory keeps churning out these obscenely rich individuals. Jeffrey Epstein was reportedly worth some $600 million at his death. This former math teacher (with no teaching qualifications) accrued an enormous wealth via his philandering, financing, blackmailing, spying, pimping and sex trafficking activities. Epstein was a celebrated billionaire buddy of Donald Trump for many years and they shared a passion for very young pretty girls, according to Trump himself.
America is a strange place with its preference for really old men running the country. The mad, bad grandpa in the White House is a daily bullshitter. Telling lies and posting them on social media is, obviously, a compulsive habit of Donald Trump. It takes a special nation to elect the man who failed spectacularly during the global pandemic. Why would you put a x6 times bankrupt in charge of your country? This reeks of ignorance through disengagement with political and economic realities. Taking a compulsive liar at face value suggests that Americans are not the sharpest tools in the shed.
You know, paying your taxes is pretty important for the country. It may not be popular but tax revenue challenges are vital to the future of this nation. ATO $2 billion scam failure lets down Australia. The ABC’s 4 Corners has exposed huge holes in the ATO automated system to the tune of billions of dollars. Local scammers and criminals have plundered the tax office to an extraordinary scale over recent years. The disappointing nature of this is not only the embarrassing hit to the nation’s coffers but the fact that ATO retrenchments directly contributed to the appalling loss and theft of funds.
In Gaza, Israel is actively starving Palestinians to death. This follows bombing the shit out of the place and killing in excess of 50, 000 human beings. Meanwhile, in Australia the politicians are worrying about antisemitism and a few criminal acts of property destruction. Whilst in America, it is all about a sex scandal involving the exploitation of underage girls by Jeffrey Epstein, who has been dead for 6 years. This is the world we live in. Protesting acts of genocide is being made illegal by the efforts of those working the system to the advantage of their influential friends.
Americans have a funny idea about democracy if their behaviour around voting is any indication. If you look at the current situation and at the history of voting in the United States there is a greater push to keep people from voting than any encouragement for them to do so. More eligible American adults didn’t vote in the last presidential election than voted for either main party by about 20 million voters. The prevention of voting in the US. American men in power prevented women getting the vote unilaterally in the US for around a century. Of course, racist America stopped black women from voting until the civil rights movement in the middle of the 20C. New Zealand gave women the vote in 1893. Russia in 1917.
Since the 1980s the way big companies in the United States do business has poisoned the well for the rest of us. The sick American corporate culture ruthlessly focusses on shareholder returns in return for enriching the executive to obscene levels. Stock options and company stock buybacks have become key ingredients in the billionaire factory churning out the super wealthy. This manipulation of the fabric of how companies do business has come at the expense of other stake holders like employees, consumers and the nations where these corporations do business. Downsizing, outsourcing, and profit shifting are all means by which companies have increased profits, reduced costs and avoided paying their fair share of tax. At the same time, these actions have reduced community engagement and care in return for outlandish levels of wealth for a few at the expense of the many.
The AFL has created a game that human bodies cannot actually cope with. How do we know this? Take a look at the number of soft tissue and knee injuries on the playing lists of AFL clubs. AFL a game unfit for human bodies. The evolution of the game has AFL players running at top speed, suddenly stopping, turning, twisting and being tackled. No bloody wonder that human joints and muscles cannot cope with the stress being applied to them under this kind of duress week in and week out. The physical conditioning experts employed by the clubs would know this but their well paid jobs encourage them to stay silent on this issue.
